My days in Turkmenistan and its censorship of blogger.com and terrible bandwidth are over. I'm now in the fair city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Russia, a place seemingly near the edge of the Earth, which you'd think would be hard to find on a spherical body but yet here we are. I have been here nearly two weeks now. First impressions: there is snow, lots of snow and many of the cars are right-hand drive which is presumably a function of the the island's proximity to Japan. A bonus observation: I have heard fireworks every night I have been here, not just last night. The locals seem to really dig blowing things up. More to come soon. Maybe.